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Lesson plan Grade 7 Art & Music

Thornwell PFAS Poster: A Right-to-Know Design Lesson

A grade 7 art lesson where students design a clear public poster that explains the new PFAS drinking-water limit for a fictional town's residents.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain the purpose of the federal PFAS drinking-water limit in plain language.
  2. Students will design a public poster that communicates a water-safety policy clearly.
  3. Students will identify one consequence of the policy for a town's water system.

Vocabulary

PFAS
A large family of human-made chemicals used in things like nonstick pans, waterproof fabric, and firefighting foam. They are called forever chemicals because they take a very long time to break down.
Contaminant
A contaminant is anything in water that should not be there, whether it is a germ, a chemical, or too much of a natural mineral, that could make the water unsafe or unpleasant to use. Treatment plants are built specifically to find and remove contaminants before water reaches the tap.
Parts per trillion
A unit for measuring extremely small amounts of a chemical in water. PFAS limits are set in parts per trillion because these chemicals matter even in tiny doses.

Also: right-to-know, poster

Teacher overview

PFAS are a group of long-lasting chemicals found in some drinking water, and the federal government has set drinking-water limits for PFAS, including 4.0 parts per trillion each for PFOA and PFOS. That is a very small amount, which is part of why the rule is hard for many people to picture. This lesson treats the poster as a public-service tool: students study the purpose and effects of the PFAS limit, then design a clear poster that tells residents of the fictional town of Thornwell what the rule means and where to learn more. The design goal is a poster that is honest and clear without causing alarm, so students practice communicating a real policy without exaggerating it.

Procedure

Hook (8 min): Show a plain water glass and ask students how they would know whether the water in it is safe. Guide the talk toward the idea that people rely on rules and reports, not their eyes, to judge water safety, which is the reason right-to-know posters exist.

Direct instruction (14 min): Using the fact sheet, explain what PFAS are, why the limit was set (to lower long-term health risk), and how it is carried out (utilities must test their water and treat it if levels are too high, and they must meet the limits by April 2029; EPA has proposed letting some systems apply for two more years, to April 2031). Then review four poster design rules: one clear headline, one main message, a short "what you can do" line, and plenty of open space so the poster reads from across a room.

Guided practice (18 min): Students draft a poster for Thornwell that states what PFAS are, names the limit in plain words, and gives one action, such as reading the town's annual water report. Circulate and ask each student to point to their single most important line.

Closure / exit ticket (10 min): Students answer three short questions on a card: name the purpose of the PFAS limit, name one thing a utility must do because of it, and name the action your poster asks residents to take. Collect the cards as the formative check; reteach the purpose if most cards miss it.

Thornwell PFAS Poster: A Right-to-Know Design Lesson — Grade 7 Art & Music
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

PFAS Fact Sheet

  • PFAS are a group of human-made chemicals that break down very slowly, so they can build up in water and in people over time.
  • In April 2024, EPA set a drinking-water limit of 4.0 parts per trillion each for two PFAS, PFOA and PFOS.
  • Water utilities must test their water for PFAS and treat it if levels are too high.
  • Utilities must meet the PFOA and PFOS limits by April 2029. In May 2026, EPA proposed letting some water systems apply for two more years, to April 2031. The limits themselves would not change, and the proposal was not final as of September 2026, so this rule is still changing.
  • Each town's annual water-quality report lists what the utility found in its water.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: The purpose is to lower residents' long-term health risk from PFAS by capping how much can be in drinking water.
  2. Answer: A utility must test its water for PFAS and, if levels are too high, treat the water to bring them down before the compliance deadline.
  3. Answer: Accept any clear action the poster names, such as reading the town's annual water-quality report or contacting the utility with questions.

Differentiation

Support

Provide a poster template with the four zones already boxed and labeled (headline, main message, action line, space). Give sentence frames for the main message so students fill in the specific words rather than composing from a blank page.

Extension

Ask students to design a second version of the poster for a different audience, such as young children or parents of young children, and to explain in a sentence what they changed and why that audience needs a different message.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "contaminant," "limit," and "right-to-know" with simple definitions and icons. Allow the poster text to be brief phrases, and let students talk through their design in a home language before writing the final English lines.